How can I talk to my TWAW daughter?

[bonbonours]

I have one daughter who currently identifies as male. This is something we are struggling with as a family. My second daughter 13 identifies as gay and is quite involved with LGBT group at school and is very firmly on the TWAW opinion. She's in the midst of friends (and her sibling) telling her that anyone who doesn't agree is transphobic and everyone who comes out as trans should be affirmed and supported, and there are a lot in her friend group questioning their gender.

I saw a text she sent to a friend where she described me as "my transphobic mum". This upset me because generally we have a good relationship and before all this gender stuff exploded I considered myself very laid back, and accepting, loads of gay friends and family, passionate about gay rights, would be very accepting of teen sex (and would ensure they knew how to do it safely) etc. Suddenly I'm being painted as some kind of prejudiced dinosaur.

I really want to talk to her about what I believe about gender being a totally separate issue from sexuality, the trans trend, and the threat to women's rights. But I don't really know where to start. Is there anything for her to read? ( If I can persuade her)

@Childrenofthestones

OP "She doesn't know I saw that message and I worry about being criticised for"snooping" on her phone if I mention it."

It would be like throwing a bucket of petrol on a fire. You would likely never see her phone again. Possibly the worst thing you could do.

She’s a 13 year old child - if she isn’t willing to let her parents check her phone on request, then she’d have the phone taken off her! We drum into children about staying safe online - the. We give them a smartphone and don’t check it? That’s neglectful.

I believe the TWAW mantra is dangerous. Please ask your dd to read this.

1. Medical

Medical staff need to know your sex when carrying out tests, lung function tests in particular are based on sex, race and height. If you input details as a woman when you are assessing a trans woman you may not pick up asthma or any reduced flow leading to a TW not being treated.

Smear tests, only records for 'female' trigger a automatic invitation to smear tests and mammograms. If medical records recorded sex then TW would be called for prostate tests and TM for smears, when you arrive you are called by your chosen name and treated as your chosen gender.

For medical professionals it also allows us to be more discrete eg we can book a trans person's appointment at the start or end of a clinic so a TW is not sitting in a waiting area with men and TM are not in a clinic with women. Not everyone minds but it's nice to offer the option.

Some of the cross sex hormones can cause things like brittle bones so a trans person with a broken bone needs to have the hormones assessed as well as 'just' fixing the broken bone. Peter Tatchell has criticized Drs asking for medical details as being transphobic for taking a full medical history when it is necessary.

2. Individual rights

Not all TW believe they are women, Debbie Hayton is vocal that she can live as a woman, but she knows that the surgery and hormones just produce cosmetic changes, she doesn't have a cervix or a vagina, those cannot be created by any medical treatment.

Debbie has as much right to identify as a trans women who doesn't believe in the mantra TWAW and to say that TWANW as anyone else. Why should she be silenced? Surely acceptance is accepting trans people however they ID and allowing their stories to be heard.

3. Alternative therapy

Some people detransition, their voices should also be heard. Medical / surgical transition is the right thing for some people and they should be supported down that path, but they should also be allowed to explore other routes. Someone with body dismorphia may benefit from counseling about acceptance of their body regardless of whether they choose the surgical route. TWAW stops people seeking alternative routes that might be better for them as an individual.

As a medical professional I encountered a TW on a semi regular basis. Let's call her Lucy.

Lucy had body dismorphia and had chosen the surgical route, she had top surgery but during her assessments for 'bottom' surgery it was discovered she had a heart condition that meant she could not have the bottom surgery. Lucy hated her body more than ever and would self harm, and that's when I would encounter her. This is many years ago and I still think about her, I hope anesthetics have got better and that she got her surgery eventually. TWAW is not a mantra that would help her, counselling might.

4. Security of women.

Most TW do not have any surgery so retain male body strength, muscle max and sexual organs. A person with a penis should not be locked in a cell with a woman, particularly when the TW is a rapist.

5. Assaults on women and children

We know abusers will abuse, they will go to great lengths to do so, training as teachers or priests, getting involved with refugee charities, volunteering etc. The current idea of self ID leaves a huge open door for abusers to step through. No these are not genuine tw / tm but there is no way to assess this so it is sensible to keep them out of places where women and children are vulnerable eg toilets, disabled toilets are all gender neutral and don't you dare tell me it is 'degrading' because if it is good for me as a disabled person then it is good enough for a trans person. It also allows for TM dealing with a period to have access to a space they can wash and change.

I think I'd play with it a bit, if the subject came up again or if it was out in the open that she'd called you transphobic.

If my child insisted on defining me from within the tenets of their new religion (which is the closest description for a belief in gender ID) I would ask that they at least afford me the respect they afford their friends. Under their religion I am obviously not a woman (because "cis woman" is regressive and offensive; I have no gender ID; I have no shared class with select males aside from race, ability and social class) so offspring must learn my new neo pronouns and respect my non binary identity (closest option to the truth). Householders that do not believe in gender ID are of course free to continue using sex based pronouns for me.

@gamerchick

In your opinion

I think building trust is more important - if a parent wants to snoop on their child’s phone, they need to be clear from the start that that is the condition of the child owning one.

That's what I said

Apologies, your post read to me that the OP is ok to snoop on her child’s phone because that condition would have been outlined from the start. I get the impression from the OP’s posts that she didn’t have that conversation before her DD got the phone.

There are a very large number of teenagers at our local school who are questioning identity, gay, bi, neutral trans, there is a while load of phse or whatever they call it elsewhere promoting questioning identity....hmm ...no wonder so many confused teens are identifying with this current culture to present lbgtq? With 100's of different genders to select from..... it's a whole new craze

It's tricky because she's so young. My DD is 23 and we have agreed never to discuss it. We both know what the other believes, we don't agree with each other.

I am very close to my DD and I am not willing to jeopardise that over this issue however strongly I feel about it. We never make reference to anything realting to it when in each others company

Whole not while

The trans promotion are doing a 'great' job on the young to confuse and eradicate women into sub groups

Apologies, your post read to me that the OP is ok to snoop on her child’s phone because that condition would have been outlined from the start. I get the impression from the OP’s posts that she didn’t have that conversation before her DD got the phone

It's cool, I probably wasn't that clear.

I would not discuss it. No reason to, it's up to her what she thinks and believes, and she has access to information just like you have, she just disagrees with it and you and you have to let her get on with it.

You wouldn't impose your religious beliefs on a 13 year old, so why try to impose any other kind of beliefs.

I explain my own beliefs when asked about them directly. I would also prioritize family harmony and closeness over being 'right' (which you probably are) about TWAW.

Your choice, but you aren't the source of education she's choosing right now, and it's more important to keep the communication flowing so she comes to you with anything, (even nothing to do with gender or trans) in the coming years.

A transman tells parents the facts like they are. Plain, short, simple, common sense TRUTH (Don't worry, the Twitter Word & Opinion Police has already banned Scott Newgent)

@Alltheprettyseahorses

I'd say something. She needs to be told not to be so disrespectful and she also needs to be told her views are factually incorrect. I might sound harsh, but pussyfooting around won't help her in her biology exams and when she's an adult, which will be soon enough, and joins the world of work, she'll need to know how to get on with adults who know more than she does and will disagree with her. Which she will eventually but the quicker she can the better. We can't be afraid to correct our children.

This. You are an adult with a mature brain and decades of lived experience. She is an immature child. And for the first time in human history we have put into the hands of children devices that enable unknown, anonymous strangers the world over to talk to them at all hours of the day and night and coax them down all sorts of pathways, sugar coated with glitter and unicorns and big-eyed anime schoolgirls. And that teaches children to scream 'no debate' and 'shut the fuck up t*rf' at adults who question this.

She doesn't know I saw that message and I worry about being criticised for"snooping" on her phone if I mention it.

My kids are allowed their phone only on the condition that I can check it at any time.

This helped me nip a potentially dangerous situation in the bud previously where DC and friends were sharing their personal data, including addresses and full names, in a chat group they thought was private - because only they were members - but that could be read by anybody in the world.

So, we're all clear why that condition was non-negotiable. I also regularly check what content the kids are watching. When one of my older kids was getting sucked into a reactionary circle a few years ago, again I managed to head this off. (Although I still worry that some of the ideas soaked up then form the basis of my DC's beliefs now.)

And I disagree that parents should refrain from talking to a teenager about ideas and ideologies that they consider to be harmful to their child. We don't abdicate our responsibility to safeguard them and shape their minds so they grow up to be resilient adults who can think critically and make good choices when they hit their teens. On the contrary, that's when conversations about ideas and ideologies become more important than ever before.

The question is how and when do you have that chat. Do you confront it head on? Sometimes, yes. With my middle DC, it was a straight up "what these YouTubers are saying is wrong, you should not be watching them, and here is why". It took a few conversations, some lengthy ones, but we did eventually get through.

It did help that I had a critical thinking cheat sheet on the fridge, so I frequently referred to the questions it recommends that you ask yourself when you're thinking about something.

(You can download it here on the Global Citizen website.)

Here's what I would recommend:

• start the conversation when you're in a good place, picking up on something related that she brought up recently (such as equality, women's rights, human rights, news reports, a leaflet from school)
• ask her to explain her ideas to you and ask lots of questions, giving her room and time to explore them with you (what do you think gender identity is, where does it come from, what cis means, why do we have single-sex prisons or hospital wards, can we identify as a different nationality or age or as having a disability, who might be excluded if there are no single-sex changing rooms at school)
• don't simply wait for her to stop talking so you can refute her with your extremely logical points (that's one of my weaknesses) but take her with you on exploring why you think differently to her
• I would focus on one issue at a time only and find good resources that would help me make it age appropriate (if I wanted to discuss gender identity for instance, I would first watch Rebecca Riley Cooper's video again, because I found that very clear on the concept. I don't agree with everything she writes on gender, but the video is excellent.)
• be clear that your focus is on women's rights and use language that aids that understanding (I always talk about male and female, male-bodied and female-bodied, I don't use words like TW or TM)
• don't ambush your child, but try to find a natural opening (learned that one the hard way)
• be firm on name-calling and insults (if she wants to call you transphobic to her friends that's par for the course with teens; if she does it to your face, firmly remind her of your family's behaviour rules)
• don't be disappointed if you make little progress at first (my oldest came to me two years after I first started talking to him about women's rights to tell me that my points had finally sunk in, because, sadly, life was hammering them in more forcefully than I ever could)

Good luck!

My dd was totally TWAW at your DD's age. She called me transphobic you.
At age 17 she started saying that TWAW but TW don't belong in womens prisons and women's sport which was when I started talking about my thoughts on it.
She now realises that people who don't believe that TWAW aren't saying that trans people should be bullied and eradicated. There is a minority of true scum who believe this but believing in sex over gender doesn't mean you wish ill on people who are trans or non-binary. It's like respecting someone who has a different religion - live and let live but expect the other person to treat your beliefs the same way. Being older (life experience) and meeting people who are gay has helped chip away at TWAW because she knows people who are attracted to the same sex and that isn't transphobic.

You wouldn't impose your religious beliefs on a 13 year old, so why try to impose any other kind of beliefs.

No but I would ensure my child learns evidence based science and I would try to keep them away from other people's religious beliefs and unscientific dogma. Where I can't keep them away I need to help them learn to critically evaluate with all the facts. Thanks to charley for such a helpful post on how to do this.

Being GC, critical of "gender" - the means by which women are oppressed - is a belief I guess (the sexual dimorphism of humans is scientific fact, not a belief). But to believe the opposite, that gender stereotypes (submissiveness, femininity, lower pay, less authority, etc) are somehow innate to women, is pretty sexist and homophobic. In my house sexism, homophobia and racism are always going to be challenged and discussed.

@CharlieParley thank you for your post, that was very useful to read and I like the critical thinking resources.

@Deathling

A transman tells parents the facts like they are. Plain, short, simple, common sense TRUTH (Don't worry, the Twitter Word & Opinion Police has already banned Scott Newgent)

Yes this.

Some great sources and ideas here OP.

I could be really cynical and suggest that there might be more social capital in the heat of the moment in claiming a transphobic mum than claiming a really quite cool and supportive mum. It may be nothing more than something said to get a need met/project an image in that conversation with typical teenaged thoughtlessness about how you'd feel if you thought she viewed you in that way.

Bear in mind too, the ideology poured out at kids is quite intentionally all about separating them from emotional connections with parents and family and anyone else who may provide balance or other views. It's one of the most worrying things about it. But again 'my mum is great and supportive' is not going to be a message that gets much positive attention online.

I got my teens to talk this through by explaining my trans-ness to them (no gender identity =agender). They immediately declared 'No you're not!' and I asked them to explain why my trans-ness was different to other people.

Turns out they believe that only people with body dysmorphia are 'actually trans'. We were able to discuss it a bit less heatedly once we understood what the other was actually talking about.

I am surprised at how many people say don't talk. In an age where the young really can't know which information sources to trust surely they need support from people they can trust to guide them. This is old fashioned parenting. Look at things together, discuss together. Take an argument or view point to its foundations. Teach your kids to think critically. I argued with my mum at this age. I argured for the sake of arguing because I was 13, 14, 15 or 16. But I remember what she said and I could see that she always had my own best interest at heart. I think this view is unfashionable now, but I don't know when we decided to stop parenting.

I think quite a few of the people (including myself) are suggesting talking about wider issues, women's rights, critical thinking etc, to give kids the tools to navigate this tricky area. It's not abdicating parenting at all, it's recognising you have to parent teens differently.

Definitely critical thinking.

We started that discussion when ours was much younger particularly around topical things such as climate change, vaccines, religion and flat earth (never thought I would have that conversation). It is important to learn how to recognise pseudo-science vs proven science and to realise that having an alternative hypothesis is absolutely fine, but it is not something to base law or social changes on.

It is always interesting when they start realising that sex change outside of cosmetic and artificial hormonal changes were not possible. They find their way to working out what works for them, what they are willing to overlook for the comfort of their friends while treating all people with respect.

I think it would be much harder to have a teen who could not work out for themselves that people really cannot change sex.